Thursday, March 13, 2014

The inevitable Malaysian Airlines Jet post

Okay, I said earlier that I would not write about the Great Missing Jet mystery as long as everyone else knew everything I know. While I still don't have any scoops, I do have an observation.

Boston.com has published the usual compilation piece about those crazy conspiracy theorists and what they've said about this event. Some of these scenarios are indeed quite loopy and fully deserving of ridicule. (Keep an eye on conspiracist Angela Stalcup. She's fun.) At the end, readers who want saner theories are directed to read this NPR article.

Problem: That article, published a couple of days ago, now seems almost as wrongheaded as the crap we've heard from the UFO buffs and Illuminati-spotters.

If there was a minor mechanical failure — or even something more serious like the shutdown of both of the plane's engines — the pilots likely would have had time to radio for help. The lack of a call "suggests something very sudden and very violent happened," said William Waldock, who teaches accident investigation at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Ariz.

It initially appears that there was either an abrupt breakup of the plane or something that led it into a quick, steep dive. Some experts even suggested an act of terrorism or a pilot purposely crashing the jet.

"Either you had a catastrophic event that tore the airplane apart, or you had a criminal act," said Scott Hamilton, managing director of aviation consultancy Leeham Co. "It was so quick and they didn't radio."

Yeah, but investigators now believe that it wasn't quick. A ping from the engine suggests that the jet flew for hours after its final contact with controllers.

Malaysian authorities believe they have several "pings" from the airliner's service data system, known as ACARS, transmitted to satellites in the four to five hours after the last transponder signal, suggesting the plane flew to the Indian Ocean, a senior U.S. official told CNN. That information combined with known radar data and knowledge of fuel range leads officials to believe the plane may have made it to that ocean, which is in the opposite direction of the plane's original route.

"There is probably a significant likelihood" that the aircraft is now on the bottom of the Indian Ocean, the official said, citing information Malaysia has shared with the United States.

If it flew for hours, why no contact?

What a world. The non-wacky official explanations can be just as untenable as the wacko theories.

I doubt cell phones would be of any use out over the open water; they've got a limited range and would likely not have been able to make calls.

I've got absolutely no idea what could have happened to this plane, but based on what we know, which is that the transponders seemed to have stopped working yet the automated engine data transfer function continued chirping, it seems like the plane was taken over in some fashion.

Maybe individuals on the plane hijacked it, killed the flight crew, and attempted to fly it to another destination on their own, got caught out over open water and ran out of fuel.

Maybe the entire cabin was incapacitated by some sort of noxious gas which rendered everyone unconscious before they could indicate to ground control that they were in trouble and whomever was responsible protected themselves somehow - gas masks, oxygen tank, etc - and seized control, flying the plane to an as yet undisclosed location below radar. After all, we know the engines appear to have been running for hours and Malaysian radar indicates it was flying at low altitude.

Perhaps there was a whistleblower on the plane who had potentially damaging information in his/her possession and it was more efficient to down a plane with 239 souls on board than it was to face the music of confronting whatever horrible information this person was attempting to set free.

Part of the problem we face living in such bizarre times, when our own governments are infecting our computers with malware, collecting electronic evidence of everything we say and do, everyplace we go, and everyone we know, is that it's hard to draw the line between fantasy and reality.

I've long been accused of being a conspiracy theorist, but I wear that as a badge of honor, not a scarlet letter. I'm skeptical of most of what I hear out of our corporate media exactly because so little of it makes sense to me.

Anyway, sorry for rambling here, but who knows why this jet went down, where it went down, or whether we'll ever know the truth behind it. If the past 20 years (and I only limit it to that time frame because that's basically as long as I've been paying attention) serves as any indication, the official story won't hold water.

If the plane was Hi-Hacked, there is NO WAY that would ever be admitted to the world wide community, and there is the potential conspiracy, no?

What makes a conspiracy theory a conspiracy theory is the belief that if the knowledge being hidden was made public, it would actually result in a literal economic strangulation of large enough group of people as to cause a downward spiral of political and economic anarchy.

Speaking of noxious gases, some airbus planes that cycle the atmosphere through the engines and then into the cabin have been known to cause the flight crew to become unconscious or delirious, not to mention the passengers. That's nice and rare, but there's a lot of accounts of people getting headaches and suchlike because of the contaminated air, especially after long-term exposure. Airbus deny it all, so as to avoid legal action. Those planes are being phased out anyway.

This was a Boeing 777, which to date has a nearly impeccable service record. I only threw that noxious gas comment out there because that might be one way a flight crew could be incapacitated without having a chance to send a distress signal.

Who knows what happened, though. It's very creepy.

posted by Anonymous : 1:07 PM

my conisperacy theory is that someone knows what happened with all those devices trained on everything and everyone but they wont tell because it will be a confession

posted by Anonymous : 1:15 PM

There is so much speculation in the media and NO hard evidence of anything, it is just disgusting. You have to literally wade through all of the bullshit speculation to find any facts, and there appears to be virtually none since the day the plane disappeared.

I wouldn't be one bit surprised that if the plane is ever found it crashed in a similar situation than what happened with Payne Stewart's plane. It has happened before with commercial aircraft despite the size seemingly ruling out such a possibility.

I just don't see hijacking or terrorism involved. The media, however, seem extremely invested in it. Not saying it couldn't happen, but I wouldn't be surprised if my scenario turns out to be true. The plane could have turned around when the pilots realized there was a problem, and then lost consciousness. We just don't know.